Wal-Mart Walks Off with Top FORTUNE Ranking –
Again

February 23, 2004 (PLANSPONSOR.com) -Despite
allegations about its personnel practices, the nation's
largest retailer, Wal-Mart, has been tapped for the second
year in a row for the top spot in the latest list of
FORTUNE's America's Most Admired Companies.

In addition, the 2004 list includes IBM – which
rejoins it at the Number 10 spot after a 17-year absence.
“Stock performance isn’t the only reason,” FORTUNE quotes
from its accompanying magazine story. “CEO Sam Palmisano
credits his predecessor Lou Gerstner, who led the
company’s turnaround, as well as Big Blue’s refusal to
‘hunker down’ during the recession.”

IBM knocked Procter & Gamble off the list,
which had ranked Number 10 on the 2003 list. Technology
now accounts for three out of the top ten companies,
according to a magazine news release.

Following Wal-Mart on the top list (in order)
are

BerkshireHathaway

Southwest Airlines

General Electric

Dell

Microsoft

Johnson & Johnson

Starbucks

FedEx

IBM.

FORTUNE also ranked companies by industry. Three
firms roared up the rankings: Xerox zoomed from Number 9
to Number 3 in computers; McDonald’s super-sized from
Number 7 to Number 2 in food services; Washington Mutual
vaulted to first place in mortgage services.

The less fortunate, reports Harrington, include
Freddie Mac and Tenet Healthcare, whose accounting
troubles and federal investigations led to lower
rankings; Oracle, which fell from Number 2 to Number 7 in
the Computer Software category as it struggled to take
over PeopleSoft; and Anadarko Petroleum, which plunged
from Number 2 to Number 9 in the Mining-Crude Oil
Production category due to slow growth.

To arrive at the industry category rankings, the
Hay Group, a management-consulting firm, took the 10
largest companies by revenue in 64 industries, including
foreign firms with large US operations. Then it
asked 10,000 executives, directors, and securities
analysts to rate the companies in their own industries
according to eight criteria, using a scale of one to 10.
The Top 10 list is the result of another poll which
asked respondents to select the t1- companies they admire
most in any industry, choosing from a list of
corporations that ranked in the top 25% overall last
year, plus any that finished in the top 20% of their
category.

Wal-Mart has been hit with a raft of lawsuits
alleging that has mistreated certain employees including
a number of pieces of litigation over the company’s
overtime practices.